Vast majority feel vast, and major

Wednesday

Nov 23, 2011 at 2:00 AM

The vast majority of us have been hearing and reading about the vast majority for a while now. What exactly is meant by the vast majority? It's obviously more than a mere majority. Or a slight majority, because it's vast. What's vast mean? Big. Wide. Like the vast sea, ocean, universe.

BARBARA LEEDOM

The vast majority of us have been hearing and reading about the vast majority for a while now. What exactly is meant by the vast majority? It's obviously more than a mere majority. Or a slight majority, because it's vast. What's vast mean? Big. Wide. Like the vast sea, ocean, universe.

When uttered by politicians, the vast majority has to do with us, the American people, as in, the vast majority of the American people want: jobs, fairness, low taxes, balanced budgets, safety, good roads, low gas prices, easily understood credit card statements, happiness. Pols say the vast majority of the American people do not want: government waste, recession, more taxes, socialism, overcrowded schools, low-wage jobs, more government.

The vast majority of Republicans aren't what they used to be; nor are the vast majority of Democrats. So say the vast majority of political pundits. Harry Truman and Barry Goldwater are long gone.

Depending on whom you believe, the vast majority of Obama supporters are too left, and the vast majority of tea partiers, too right. The vast majority of people in Texas churches think Mormonism is a cult because their pastors tell them so, and the vast majority of people who belong to Christian churches in Texas believe what their pastors preach to them. Or so some say.

The vast majority of Americans want to work and feel better about themselves when they have jobs and earn enough money to support themselves and their families. Some economists say that. But some people think the vast majority of people who get government benefits such as heating assistance and food stamps are slovenly do-nothings who don't want jobs and want to spend their days and nights watching junk TV while munching on fat-laden chips and dips.

Muslim clerics are telling us repeatedly that the vast majority of Muslims are law-abiding citizens of the countries in which they live, including ours. That the vast majority of them have no intention of killing infidels. Only a few radicals want to kill all the infidels. We should go about our business not worrying about being blown up by radicals. Radicals are not the vast majority.

Now comes the silent majority, who may or may not be vast. These are the people who are camping out in cities and towns across the land to protest Wall Street greed, and a bunch of other stuff, depending on whom you talk with in all those camping-out places. They don't like it that 1 percent of us, a tiny minority, control the wealth of the rest of us, the vast majority. They think big banks are bad banks and should be divvied up into smaller banks; but big bankers are among the 1 percent and are not about to give up that vastness of their wealth. They tell their congressmen this in euphemistic ways, as in not giving them money for their campaigns.

Nov. 23, 2011, is an important date to the vast majority of us who follow what the super committee is going to come up with to save the vast majority of us from paying more taxes and losing more entitlements. Some of us don't know who the 12 people who may decide our futures are. Some don't care what they decide, if they decide anything, and many in the vast majority don't think they will decide anything because they're beholden to the people with the vast majority of money who got them elected.

The vast majority of grown-ups consider themselves reasonable people, but one person's reason is another person's myth. Why do the vast majority of Americans believe in supernatural beings for which there is no proof? Why do a vast majority of some people in some states, but not in Massachusetts, believe that capital punishment deters awful crimes? Why is abortion wrong but legal execution right? Why do Catholics believe they have the answers, and so do Protestants and Jews? And all the others? The vast majority of believers disagree with one another's vast majority.

Being in the vast majority has its risky points and its safety points. It feels good that most people believe as you do. On the other hand, do the vast majority of people think reasonably?

Barbara Leedom lives in South Yarmouth.

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